THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.*
lr was at Bremen, on the 24th of October, .1868, on the occasion of a festival to celebrate the safe return of the first German Arctic Expedition, that the question of the expediency of under- taking a second similar expedition was mooted. And as usual, the question very soon resolved itself into one of ways and means. Through the indefatigable exertions of Dr. Petermann and Captain Koldewey, the whole country was aroused to what was really a question of national, indeed of European interest. There were many difficulties to overcome, but by the 10th of May, 1869, it was finally arranged that the steamer 'Germania,' a ship in every way expressly adapted for ice-navigation, accompanied by the Hansa,' a vessel of nearly the same size, and equally well adapted for the purpose, should put to sea, the 'Germania' under Captain Koldewey, the ' Hansa ' under Captain Hegemann. The two vessels were to remain near each other, both in going and returning. The thirty-one paragraphs in which the 'Instructions' to the members of the expedition were set forth may be briefly summed up thus :—That the aim and object of the expedi- tion was to be the discovery and scientific investigation of the Central Arctic region from 75° N. lat. and upwards, taking the eastern coast of Greenland as a basis. We have now before us the narrative of that expedition, the record of its failures and successes, written partly by Captain Koldewey, partly by the scientific men who accompanied him, amongst whom it will readily be believed by no means the least brilliant was Lieutenant Payer, who now for a third time has returned home, like a hero from the field of battle, from his stern encounter with all the difficulties and hardships inseparable from the life of an Arctic explorer, and has so recently delighted the members of the Royal Geographical Society with the details of what may justly be termed the latest victories of the exploring party. But the expedition of 1869-70, much as it achieved, was not destined to fulfil its exact programme. On the 15th of June, with a light breeze blowing, amid the cheers of a thousand voices, the two ships side by side glided out of harbour. The Emperor, then King of Prussia, who had taken a warm interest in the cause, and who had come down to Bremerhaven to bid the voyagers "God speed!" watching them to the last moment.
• The German Arctic Expedition of 1889-70, and Narrative of the Wreck of the 'llama' in the Ice. By Captain Koldewey, Commander of the Expedition. Assisted by Members of the Scientific Staff. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle. 1874. Europe was then at peace. When the travellers re-entered the Weser, fifteen months later, they were saluted with the words,— " War with France. Napoleon prisoner ! France has declared a Republic. Our armies are before Paris !" And then to questioning eyes they had to return the answer, " 'Hansa ' destroyed in the ice ; crew saved." With all that this last statement implied, the first part of our narrative is filled, and surely no Robinson-Crusoe adventures were ever half so full of exciting interest.
For three or four weeks the ships pursued their way, with little to vary the usual monotony of life as passed on ship- board, the sighting of a Dutch fishing-smack or killing of a sea-gull forming the exciting incidents in the day's routine. On July 5 the companion ships entered the Arctic Ocean, the Hansa ' being the first to unfurl the German flag. On board both:vessels all "green hands" had to undergo the rather rough ceremony of an "Arctic christening," an account of which is given with great good-humour by Dr, Laube, one of the scientific men on board the 'Hansa.' On the 9th they came in sight of the island of Jan Mayen, and the very first night they reached the latitude in which it was possible to see it, they were able to enjoy "the wonderful sight of the midnight sun." But now they were attacked by that terrible enemy to all scientific re- search, as well as nautical progress, a fog, so dense as not only to prevent their landing, but effectually to hide from their longing eyes, except for a few brief moments, the entire coast. The tanialised explorers were compelled to content themselves with reading the accounts given by former travellers, and probably it was some satisfaction to their minds to find that fog in 1856 had compelled Lord Dufferin to stay but one hour on the island. In this fog the ships became separated, morsels of floating ice gave notice of the necessity for hoisting the "crow's nest" to its place. This peculiar provision for one of the necessities of Arctic travel consists of a suitably formed barrel, placed on the top of the mast, with a telescope near at hand. This look-out gives so wide a prospect, as to make it possible to steer through the labyrinth of ice-floes by which in these regions ships are sur- rounded. Even from this height, in the brighter weather which dawned on the 14th, no 'Hansa' could be seen, but the two ships had not yet partedfor ever. Their position may be gathered, if we remember that on the east coast of Greenland, where they now were, from one year's end to another presses a powerful mass of heavy ice. "The boundary of the icy sea" (as a sea covered with Lice), writes Captain Koldewey, "may now, upon the whole, be settled by a line drawn from Cape Farewell to Iceland, from thence to Spitzbergen, and lastly to Nova Zembla. From the coast of Norway up to Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla stretches the north-easterly branch of the Gulf Stream, driving back all floating ice,:and from the comparative warmth of its waters conducing to the:melting of the same all along the ice boundary. On the other hand, on the east coast of Greenland runs the Polar current in a south-westerly direction to a great distance, carrying with it the heavy ice formed in the extreme north, and picking up on its wayjall the younger ice frozen during the winter ; while, from the coldness of its waters, it prevents the melting of the same in a remarkable degree." These observations are the more necessary to be borne in mind if, as the latest discoveries of the Austro-Hungarian expedition would seem to demonstrate, all hope of reaching the Pole via Spitzbergen must be dispelled, and the west instead of the east of Greenland be tried once more. On the 15th of July the 'Germania 'reached the ice-line. A practised ear, says Captain Koldewey, might now notice a peculiar, distant roar, which seemed to come nearer by degrees. It was the sea surging against the still hidden ice Nearer and nearer comes the rushing noise. Every man is on deck ; when, as with the touch of a magic wand, the mist divides, and a few hundred yards before us lies the ice, in long lines like a deep in- dented rocky coast, with walls glittering blue in the sun, and the foam of the waves mounting high, with the top covered with blinding white snow. The eyes of all rested with amazement on this grand panorama: it was a glorious but a serious moment, stirred as we were by new thoughts and feelings, by hopes and doubts, by bold and far-reaching expectations."
Probably those who have never visited these regions fail in their wildest flights of imagination to picture the beauty of those ice- floes, with the intervening hummocks or miniature mountains of ice so exquisitely coloured and assuming such fantastic forms. "We stood," says the writer of the pages before us, "and felt that we were at the entrance of a new world, whose whole enchantment had thus burst upon us." But delight was tempered with anxiety, for the 'Hansa' was still not visible ; a few hours later, however, she was descried under fall sail, doing her best to reach, through the thick ice which surrounded her, the sister-ship. The ' Ger-
mania ' at once got up steam and hastened to her assistance. Captain Hegemann, Dr. Buckholz, and Dr. Laube came on board, and a consultation was held as to the next steps to be taken. The zoologists had, so far, the most reason to be satisfied ; they had already made an interesting collection. Speaking of specimens of the beautiful Bera which had been obtained, the writer observes, "that it is a pity these wonderful creatures, with transparent cucumber bodies, long rosy-red tentacles, and their eight rows of glittering, many-coloured, leaf-like processes, with which they move slowly forward, cannot be preserved in their original beauty." Full of confidence and bright hope, the officers from the ' Hansa ' returned to their ship. A few days later the Germania,' wish- ing to take coal on board, hoisted the 'approach' Signal. The ' Hansa ' misunderstood this set more sail,' and disappeared in the thickly-rising fog before the Germania' could succeed in following her." As far as the ships were concerned, it was a final parting. Those who would follow the fortunes of the ' Hansa ' fully, must read the report of Captain Hegemann and his companions for themselves. It is a narrative of keen interest, to which we can do but scant justice in a brief summary ; but we must, if possible, tell something of the adventures of the little band of heroic men who, during the next twelve months, encountered dangers and hardships before which the sternest natures might have quailed, not only without a murmur, but with a cheerfulness and readiness of resource which are truly marvellous. For many days there seemed still some hope of rejoining the 'Germania,' but by the 14th of August the 'Hansa' was hemmed in on all sides, "fresh ice formed between the floes, and the ship was again fast:" From that date the captain's log-book is a record of dangers and reverses. They were then forty-eight nautical miles distant from Shannon Island ; by the 2nd of September the ship was subject to such tremendous pressure from the ice, that the idea of using the coal-bricks to build a house on the ice-floes was. seriously entertained. On the morning of the 5th, they were able to sail by the side of an ice-field, fifteen nautical miles long, till eight in the evening, but it was a last and vain attempt. With steam, the captain remarks, "we might have reached the open water which we saw along the coast," but as it was, the case was hopeless. Dr. Laube's graphic pen describes the position from day to day, as with all their strength they towed from one floe to another, no sooner free from one than another drifted into its place. But Germans have one grand point in common,—they never wholly lose the child's heart, and even with the prospect before them of passing an Arctic winter —a three months' night—in a coal-hut, half buried in an ice-floe, they could still celebrate the captain's birthday with a huge cake, "made with great art by our cook ; " and the hero of the fete finds. on his plate at breakfast a pretty poem by Dr. Laube, in which the good wishes of all the party are heartily expressed. What manner of men formed that little community may be indicated by a chance sentence of Lieutenant Payer's in his statement to the Royal Geographical Society. When speaking of his latest expedition, with a very similar brotherhood, he incidentally mentions the little fact that, fearing in their involuntarily prolonged sojourn lest their stores of wine might not prove more than sufficient for the sick, they who were well drank nothing but an artificial wine made of glycerine, sugar, tartaric acid, alcohol, and water. The work before us owes much of its charm to the excellence of the engravings, which help the reader to form the clearest idea of the whole position, and to realise it in a way for which the most graphic details would ill compensate.
By the end of September, it was pretty clear the 'Hansa' was doomed, and the building of the winter-house on the ice was clamoured for. The account of the construction of this house, and all the ingenious contrivances for maintaining life and vigour under these adverse circumstances, read like a page out of some modern 'Robinson Crnsoe.' We think of ice as silent, but how must it have seemed to men engaged in rearing upon it the home they re- fused to consider miserable, as at regular intervals "it groaned and cracked, squashed and puffed, now sounding like the banging of doors, now like many human voices raised one against another, and lastly, like a drag on the wheel of a railway engine." And them to find that all this noise and crushing meant that "our field had turned, in drifting, and was now pressed closer to the coast- ice." Though so near the coast, any attempt to reach the land, says Dr. Buchholtz, WaS not to be thought of. And for obvious reasons, it would have been impossible to take provisions, and human habitations were not to be expected. The coal-hut on the ice-field was, through the long Arctic winter, to be their only place of refuge. On that ice-field they maintained, for more than six months, the heroic battle with cold, hunger,
danger, and death. Of work there was plenty, and of study, being Germans, not a little. On January 9 one of the sailors writes in his day-book :—
"Thursday, 9th of January, 18711—Northern Hotel.
"The weather in the past night was calm and clear. The moon shone brilliantly ; the northern lights and the stars glittered upon the dead beauty of a landscape of ice and snow. Listening at night, a strange, clear-sounding tone strikes the ear, then again a sound as of some one drawing near with slow and measured steps. We listen—who is it ? All still ! not a breath stirring? Once more it sounds like a lamenta- tion or a groan. It is the ice ; and now it is still, still as the grave, and from the pale glance of the moon the ghastly-outlined coast is seen, from which the giant rocks are looking over to us. Ice-rocks, and thousands of glittering stars. 0 thou wonderfully ghost-like night of the North !"
Now and then all seemed lost. Once a cry arose, "Water on the floe close by!" and suddenly a great gap, and the reduced ice-floe rose and fell, and all the store of firewood was drifting out to the raging sea. For two hundred miles, on the ever-diminishing floc, the little community, with their boats and such of their worldly possessions as had survived the wreck of the 'Hansa,' floated steadily though slowly southward. They kept Christmas Eve on a Greenland floe, and even there a Christmas-tree was put together out of pinewood and birch-broom. "The men had made a knap- sack and revolver-case for the captain,"—each touch tells in the story. But at length, on May 7, there was open water in the direction, of land, and after weeks more of toil and danger, Friedrichsthal was reached at last. The men of the '.Hansa' had not been able to record fresh discoveries, but it is with pardon- able pride one of their number writes :—" We have shown, what man's nature can bear, and what man's strength and perseverance can accomplish."
Of course, for the scientific world, the fortunes of the 'Ger- mania,' which did not get lost in the ice, have a stronger interest. The advantages of steam in the ice regions was proved to demon- stration, as it often seemed impossible to steer a way through the floes except by actually boring with high steam-pressure. On the 5th of August the 'Germania' dropped anchor on Greenland soil, the captain having run the ship into a small bay in 74° 19' N. lat. and 16° 59' W. long. In this bay the explorers afterwards found their winter harbour ; meanwhile land explorations commenced, and here Captain Koldewey bitterly laments the loss of the sister- ship, as their own community was too small for the amount of work to be undertaken. By climbing high mountains the travellers obtained a good out-look over the country, and at times it was a glorious prospect that met their view ; but meanwhile the impossibility of advancing further north be- fore the spring and the necessity of wintering on Sabine Island became a certainty. The view from the mountain- top had convinced them of the impregnable solidity of the pack-ice, but also, as had been conjectured, that the Fligely Fjord did really open into Ardencaple Bay. Reindeer and musk- oxen abounded, while the presence of the bear lent the zest of danger to many a good hunt. While sheltering on Sabine Island, with only, the protection of a saturated and frozen tent, the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but they were not unrewarded. On the 19th September, Lieutenant Payer "noticed a stone of strikingly light colour, which on the south side of Kuhn Island formed solid, overhanging crystals, to at least 2,000 feet high." To his astonishment, he found that he had stumbled upon an enormous layer of coal, alternating with sandstone. It seemed probable that this was lias coal, from three-quarters to eighteen inches thick. This discovery is of the greatest import- ance, the want of fuel, as Captain Boldewey observes, being the greatest drawback to any long stay inland. Another discovery was the trace of former glaciers, but space forbids us to follow the explorers as they gathered fresh knowledge at every step. From the close of September till the end of February, the little com- munity had to remain in comparative inactivity, yet certainly not in idleness, since of scientific work there was plenty. The captain had established a school of navigation for the men, the captain teaching navigation, Dr. Borger' geography and astronomy, and Dr. Copeland natural science ; besides which a fortnightly news- paper was established, in which the small events of each day were chronicled, and which contained, also, "all sorts of fun, some poems, official proclamations, and in the first number, an address to the men by the doctor." In the beginning of March, the sledge journeys were commenced. What those journeys involved can best be read in the words of Lieutenant Payer, Dr. Copeland, and their companions ; we can only give a summary of results. Amidst hardships which to ordinary men would seem too terrible to be en- dured, the explorers being exposed to hunger as well as cold, and worse than hunger, to perpetual thirst, on the 15th of April, 1870, the 77th degree of latitude WAS crossed, and on a mountain 1,080 feet high "the North-German and Austrian flags fluttered in a light north wind peaceably side by side." And yet the result, after all, from a geographical point of view, was negative ; King William's Land had been discovered, but not an open Arctic sea. "Resting," says Lieutenant Payer, "after endless troubles, at the end of our journey, we still looked in vain for the solution of the many riddles which science expected of us." The undaunted lieutenant, however, no sooner reached home than he desired once more to try and advance further north, through Barent's Sea. On the 1st September, 1871, he and Weyprecht reached (in 78° 43' N. lat.) the meridian of 42° 30' E. In 1872, these indefatigable explorers succeeded in calling into existence a still larger Austrian expedition, from which Lieutenant Payer has but just returned, after penetrat- ing up to 83° N. lat., drifting for fourteen months on an ice floe, —and drifting, for the first time in the experience of Arctic explorers, uninterruptedly towards the north. The floe in which the Tegethoff ' was enclosed broke away in the third winter from the main body of the ice and carried her into open water, where "the rising sun of 1874," says Dr. Chavanne, "lighted up and discovered a new land, now named Franz Joseph Land.' This newly discovered land stretches for more than 15° of longi- tude, and bounds the horizon with mountains as far as the eye can reach to the west. In finding a north-west passage the expedition failed, but, meanwhile, to the gallant lieutenant remains the glory of discovering a land nearer the Pole than, as far as we yet know, any other Arctic explorer has reached.
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